5 Great College Basketball Teams That Could've Been
4. 2008-09 UCLA Bruins
For starters, Darren Collison would make a great point guard and leader of the team. By 2008-09, he was a senior and in his final year as a UCLA Bruin. That year, he averaged 14.4 points, 4.7 assists and 1.6 steals per game while steering the Bruins to a tournament bid. He was good on both ends of the floor, with 3.8 offensive win shares and 1.6 defensive win shares.
Collison is now in his eighth season in the NBA. After getting over a poor rookie campaign in 2009-10 (-3.4 nERD) with the New Orleans Pelicans, he's been a decent point guard, with a total nERD of 1.0 and averages of 12.6 points and 4.8 assists per contest.
In his one and only season with UCLA, Jrue Holiday played alongside Collison, primarily as a two-guard. He averaged 8.5 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists in just over 27 minutes per game spread across 35 games. And, in that time, Holiday proved his worth as a first-round pick in the coming NBA draft.
Since entering the league, Holiday has been an above average point guard when healthy. In his last year with the 76ers, he started 78 games, averaging 17.7 points, 8.0 assists and 4.2 rebounds, and was voted an All-Star. Since being sent to New Orleans, the problem has been injuries. He's never started more than 37 games or played in more than 65 contests, but the talent and production is there.
In following the sport's recent trend toward position-less basketball, Russell Westbrook could go ahead and play alongside his fellow NBA point guards. After all, he stands 6'3" and is built like a house. Not to mention, he can do just about everything on the basketball court, as he showed in his sophomore year when he averaged 12.7 points, 4.3 assists and 3.9 rebounds per game.
Westbrook has had a great career, producing six seasons with a nERD of 6.0 or better, In 2015-16, he earned a rating of 15.4, his best to date. For his career, Westbrook is averaging 5.9 boards a game, so playing small forward alongside two other electric guards should be no sweat.
Luc Mbah a Moute isn't any kind of NBA star, nor has he ever made an All-Star teams. However, that's just the player Mbah a Moute is and was at UCLA. In three years, he put up averages of 8.7 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.3 steals in 29.5 minutes. What he brings to the table is defensively versatility and a winning resume, having gone to the Elite Eight twice and Final Four once in his collegiate career.
The eight-year veteran has had similar production in the Association, with career averages of 6.3 points, 4.4 rebounds and 0.9 steals in 23.3 minutes a night. At the same time, his length has proven to be a problem for opposing players. Mbah a Moute has 16.7 defensive win shares in his career and a defensive rating of 105 points allowed per 100 possessions. He would bring much-needed defensive effort to a lineup with offense everywhere else.
Speaking of offense, Kevin Love -- who would've been a sophomore in 2008-09 -- provided much of that for the Bruins, in the form of 17.5 points per game on 55.9% shooting. He also supplied 10.6 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 29.6 minutes per game in his freshman season, the same year his Bruins lost in the national semifinal. That was despite Love's whopping .391 win shares per 40 minutes.
The next year Love was drafted fifth overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves, for whom he averaged 19.2 points, 12.2 rebounds 1.2 threes over 32.8 minutes per night. He's since been traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers, a team he's been a part of for two-plus seasons and has averaged 17.0 points, 10.0 rebounds and 2.1 threes in that span. His production and postseason experience is only one of many factors that would've made Love a great center to pair with the rest of UCLA's cast of could've-been teammates.
